Your Girl

"You can sleep over there."

Gabrielle bit her lip before deciding to chance being perhaps unwisely bold yet again. "Xena?"

Those stunningly blue eyes met hers before looking away just as fast. "Yeah?" the warrior princess asked, voice gruff and hackles rising anew in an instant.

Uh-oh. "What- what you're cooking- …What is it that you're cooking?"

"Soup. Why? There's not enough for you."

Gabrielle blushed. "That's okay! I'm not hungry! But- um, your soup might smell- taste- well, be more enjoyable if you added these." Sliding from the log to kneel on the other side of the fire, she picked some leaves and then passed them to Xena. Another whiff of the unfortunate concoction in the small cauldron had the girl rising to gather more herbs. "These would probably help too. …Is something wrong?" she wondered when the silence drew too long for her comfort.

Xena rearranged her expression from awe to derision as Gabrielle hesitantly turned to face her. "Are you sure? I don't want to spend the whole night being sick."

Gabrielle immediately put her hands on her hips and cocked one. "Yeah, I'm sure! Food's the one thing I'm good at. Really good at!" Her emerging grin slipped. "I mean, not the one thing I'm good at! I- I could be very valuable to you! I've studied the stars, spoken with philosophers, and I-"

Warm chuckles stayed her sputtering mouth, the pitch she'd been composing since fleeing Potidaea falling away just as quickly.

"If you know good plants from bad ones and, better, can put them together into something edible, I'm sold!" Then it was Xena's turn to blush. She hadn't realized just how important the cooks of her armies had been before not having one. The toe of her boot twisted in the dirt to avoid kicking herself. "What I mean is-"

"I know what you mean. I'm your girl." That same smile Gabrielle had given Xena in the mausoleum after telling her she was not alone shone upon the warrior princess once more.

Even then, Xena had an inkling of how true that statement would one day be.


*Hey, everyone! I introduce to you "Episodic Ficlets," a series in which I write word-count-restricted drabbles for each episode of the series. This one^ has exactly 350 words. Also, I will include little intro lines in bold each time to place the drabbles within their episodes since I can't upload chapter pictures here. As such, the show's dialogue will not factor into the word count since they're not my words. ...Thoughts? Should I aim for a different number in the future? Is this a bad idea overall? Lemme know! Thanks! 😀